ASRock Z370 Extreme 4 Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The ASRock Z370 Extreme 4 Motherboard is available now with an MSRP £145.99, which is very competitive, and it’s cheaper than the Gaming K6 Fatal1ty which is £172.99.

Overview

The new ASRock motherboards are certainly interesting. If you haven’t checked out our Z370 Fatal1ty motherboard review, you can do so here. However, keep in mind that the Extreme 4 and the Fatal1ty edition are near identical in terms of design. The gaming version does have dual LAN, and a larger chipset heatsink, but it’s pretty much the same board. That being said, this model is a little bit cheaper, and if anything I think it performed a little bit better overall too, making it much better value for money. At least, better value for those that don’t need the dual networking.

Z370

Love or hate the idea of needing a Z370 board for the new 8th Generation CPUs, it is what it is. Sure, the boards are pretty much the same motherboards we saw for Z270. The new socket was needed though, and the pins are a little different to allow for the new 6-core CPUs such as the i7-8700K. Is it worth upgrading from Z270 or the 7700K? Only if money isn’t an issue. If you’re building a new system or coming from an older chipset, then Z370 is the smart way to go for Intel users.

The ASRock Extreme 4 or Not?

For a day to day work and gaming system, the Extreme 4 is a great choice. It’s not quite the fastest, and certainly not the slowest, but it’ll be priced to reflect that. It’s also better value for money than it’s Fatal1ty gaming focused big brother, but still delivers performance that can compete with it. Personally, I’d buy this one over the gaming one, even for a gaming system.

Add the fact this motherboard comes equipped with dual M.2 storage mounts, Optane support, and a boatload of USB connections, and you’ve got all the making of a power workstation or RAID focused system. Of course, with SLI/CrossFire support, you can throw in a few high-end graphics cards and build the 4K gaming system you’ve always wanted, without the need to pay a lot more money and go for X299, or even Threadripper.

Pros

• Great gaming performance
• Stylish design
• Robust overclocking features
• Easy to use BIOS
• RGB lighting
• 8th Gen CPU support
• Optane support
• Amazing onboard audio
• Cheaper and fastest than Fatal1ty board (albeit with fewer features)
• Armoured PCIe slots
• High-quality components
• Good efficiency

Cons

• None

Neutral

• It feels like performance should be a little better, not that it’s bad, but I’m expecting BIOS updates will see some big improvements in the coming weeks

“The stylish design and high-quality components are a good enough reason to buy the Extreme 4. The great all-round performance, efficiency and overclocking are all just a welcome bonus!”